President Fires Off New Arms Cut Plan

WASHINGTON — President Reagan said Thursday that U.S. negotiators will unveil a new arms reduction plan in Geneva today aimed at reducing nuclear weapons systems.

The negotiators also will ask to extend the talks a week beyond today's scheduled adjournment so the Soviets can consider the plan and engage in a ''real give and take'' with their U.S. counterparts.

''I would characterize our arms control position as deep cuts, no first- strike advantage, defensive research because defense is safer than offense, and no cheating,'' said Reagan, who meets with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev at the summit Nov. 19-20 in Geneva, Switzerland.

Reagan, meeting with reporters at the White House, refused to divulge any specifics of the plan, which he said ''isn't that deep a document.''

However, administration sources told The Boston Globe Thursday night that the plan seeks drastic reductions in each side's arsenal.

According to the sources, the proposed cuts include:

-- A reduction for each side to 4,500 nuclear warheads on land-based and sea-based missiles, with the Soviets limited to 3,000 land-based warheads.

-- A separate cut for each side to between 300 and 400 long-range bombers, with each country restricted to no more than 1,500 air-launched cruise missiles.

-- A reduction to about 140 medium-range missiles each worldwide, with the United States allowed to keep a mix in Europe of Pershing 2 and ground- launched cruise missiles and the Soviet Union restricted to a like number of SS-20 warheads in Europe and Asia. These cuts would exempt British and French medium-range missiles.

Also, the sources said the United States, as Reagan indicated Thursday, will continue to insist on conducting research and constrained testing of its proposed defensive space shield, the strategic defense initiative.

Most significant is the proposed cut in strategic weapons to 4,500 warheads each, because the Soviet Union has about 9,000 such warheads and the United States about 7,600.

The president said the most recent Soviet offer on arms cuts ''unfortunately fell significantly short in several key areas.''

That offer, delivered to Reagan by Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze, would set U.S. and Soviet limits of 1,250 delivery vehicles such as bombers and missiles carrying nuclear warheads. That would effectively cut the Soviet arsenal in half.

During his speech to the United Nations last week, Reagan said the Soviet plan ''had certain positive seeds which we wished to nurture. Our new proposal builds upon these positive elements and calls for very significant, balanced reductions of comparable nuclear systems, particularly those that are the most destabilizing.''

Copies of the new U.S. proposal were sent to Gorbachev and to allied leaders Thursday.

Several European leaders last week urged Reagan to make a counterproposal before the summit in response to the Soviet initiative.

The arms control talks center on long- and medium-range nuclear weapons and Reagan's strategic defense initiative, commonly called Star Wars.

It is this last category that the Soviets have been trying to reduce to a negotiable bargaining chip by offering concessions in the number of missiles and warheads.

During an impromptu question-and-answer session after the briefing, Reagan said ''yes, of course'' he would negotiate some of those cuts directly with Gorbachev at the summit.

Shortly before his announcement, Reagan told four veteran Soviet journalists that he would agree to some of the reductions proposed by their government.

He also said he was ''hopeful and optimistic that maybe we can make some concrete achievements'' in Geneva.

''Arms control is a result. . . . First you've got to eliminate the suspicions and paranoia between us,'' Reagan said.

It was the first interview granted by an American president to the Soviet press in nearly a quarter of a century.

In his announcement, Reagan reiterated his desire for research into Star Wars, which the Soviets want the United States to abandon.

''It's my hope that our new proposal will enable both of our nations to start moving away from ever-larger arsenals of offensive forces. At the same time, we seek in Geneva to undertake with the Soviets a serious examiniation of the relationship between offensive and defensive forces,'' Reagan said.

He also reiterated his desire not to limit the summit to arms control but also to negotiate human rights issues, Soviet involvement in several global hot spots and U.S.-Soviet relations.

That view was echoed later in the day by Secretary of State George Shultz, who will go to Moscow early next week to meet with Gorbachev and other top Kremlin officials in preparation for the summit.

''There are many issues and they are entwined,'' Shultz said.

He dismissed a suggestion that the new U.S. position was part of a public relations campaign.

Even before the first summit begins there is already talk of a second superpower parley so that arms control and other issues can become part of an ongoing dialogue.

Reagan first publicly broached the subject of a new U.S. counteroffer during the opening moments of his interview with the four Soviet journalists in the Oval Office. U.S. photographers were allowed in during the first part of the interview.

He also said he appreciated the chance to talk to the Soviet people ''because I always believed a lot of the ills of the world would disappear if we talked more to each other instead of about each other.''

The Soviet journalists were mobbed by White House reporters, photographers and camera crews as they left the executive mansion.

But like good reporters on deadline, they refused to divulge any details until their stories are published Sunday.

Looking decidedly uncomfortable in front of a row of cameras, Gennadiy Shishkin, first deputy director of the news agency Tass, told his American colleagues:

''I am a professional interviewer, you know. I am used to asking question and to get interview, but not to give interview.''